The business was not successful, nor, obviously, was the peacemaking initiative behind it. When Lubetzky talked to his Palestinian and Israeli friends about why war broke out in 2000, he found that he was talking to sets of people operating with completely different information sources, and those with moderating voices were being drowned out by those at the extremes. “Even if moderates make up 90 to 99% of society and extremists are only one to 10%, extremists wake up in the morning and think, ‘How can I advance my cause?’” he says. “And moderates wake up in the morning and think, ‘What can I have for breakfast?’”
Lubetzky has now turned more of his attention and resources—he’s worth a reported $2.3 billion—to an initiative called Builders. “A builder is a moderate that takes action,” he says. “We’re trying to create a movement of builders that will demonstrate that we can solve problems together rather than tear each other apart.” In order to empower people to become builders, the organization is focusing on civic society, education, and media. “We want to create a movement of people with their identities, first and foremost, as builders, not as Democrats or Republicans.”
In one pilot project in Tennessee, Builders convened people from all sides of the gun debate in a room over three days to discuss what could be done to reduce gun violence. They came up with eight proposals, which were presented to the public, and 30,000 people chose five they agreed on, which were presented to the state legislature, and one was voted into law. It was a pretty vanilla statute about K-12 gun education, but, as Lubetzky learned from Moshe’s & Ali’s, you have to start somewhere. The group also made a movie about it.
Lubetzky rejects the notion that peacemaking is too difficult for ordinary people to do. By making their voices heard, he believes, people can get leaders to do the right thing, even in a situation as complex as Gaza. “We need to create a condition so that this never happens again, so that you never allow extremists on either side to take either people in an extremist, absolutist path that denies the humanity of the other side,” he says. “Or else we’re going to condemn all peoples to an eternal battleground.”
Correction, Sept. 16
The original version of this story misstated Lubetzky’s age. He is 56, not 57.
